swift fired me for two incidents and I just recieved my DAC Has two accidents on it

Ooooh, ooooh, can I be the cowboy? Or, er, cowgirl? I wanna attack an Injun!

 

So are you a lease operater Injun? Sounds like it by the way you describe fueling?

Yes the OP was in the wrong, but did he do enough damage to be fired? Maybe. Im sure theres a bit more to the story, cause I think Swift is fairly forgiving if you are an otherwise good driver. I mean I have heard they will allow a couple of minor incidents...but cant say for sure.

 

Swift is actually very forgiving. Ask 1nonly about her experience with them.

There is definitely more to the story than we are hearing here.

Yes, I am lease.

 

I had 3 accidents between 05/07 and 12/08. I got a speeding ticket in 08/07. I once got stuck in some mud near Dallas trying to turn around and ended up missing a delivery appointment ( which was not service failured) and tearing up a hose on a stump in the mud. I think I've had 3 SFs during the 4+ years I was a Swifty.

Yeah, I call them forgiving. At least they used to be. I've been a good girl the last couple years, and hence why I'm able to move on now. Swift is a training company- they expect to do some training. When a driver makes a mistake, they offer more training. What I see them not forgiving are the just plain stupid things. The common sense things. Like the driver who went under a low bridge in NYC knowing he wouldn't fit just because traffic behind him was honking at him. That's the kind of thing that will get a driver fired. Not simple honest mistakes.

That's why I say something isn't adding up here. There's more to this story than we've heard.

 

Another thing that can get you fired is your attitude. If you make a mistake and own it, you will have a better chance at retaining your job than if you try to blame anything and everything except your own poor judgment.

Isn't it interesting that most of the b**** threads we see about Swift ...or any company, for that matter, it's always a totally innocent driver who was in a situation out of his or her control, caught up by office politics or got stuck with crappy equipment?

I don't know about anyone else, but whenever something bad happened to me, it could have ended on an entirely different tack if I had made a different choice at the outset of the event. Therefore, I own at least a part of every single bad thing that has ever happened to me since the age of about ten.

Someone suggested earlier to cut the guy some slack. Knowing Swift, he had way more than enough slack cut for him. Swift even tried to get him home before sending him packing. He knew he was about to get the boot, so he refused to pick up a load going to his home and instead, stopped in Avenel, NJ. Lots of reasons why a fuel filter light goes on in a truck. Anybody think he may have sugared the fuel? Funny how he parked at Avenel, then the fuel filter light goes on. The DM was still trying to get him home. Until after the truck went into the shop, where it is entirely possible that contaminants in the fuel will be discovered. Suddenly, DM calls back and tells him to clean out the truck. Put two and two together!

If you had a guy with a poor attitude and worse record, you tried to get him home and then contaminants are found in the fuel, do you really want him driving your truck another two hundred miles?

Cut him some slack. How about you cut him some slack when he drives into your yard? How about cut him some slack when he not only drives into your yard, but runs over your kid, who was innocently playing in your yard?

This is not a game. There is no room for slack.

 

I agree that the op pretty much made his bed. But - and not to defend him - the Sears DMs there at the Wilkes Barre Sears DC are prettly anal orifices based on my one visit there.

 

I hauled out of there when I was still fairly new. Well, that particular day, a snow storm decided to hit. Macro 22 (gonna be late because....) and, while the guy whined like a little kid, I didn't get a service failure.

 

As long as you the driver send a qualcomm msg concerning the delay, well then that falls into dispatchers lap for blame if nothing gets done.

Always put svc issues on qualcomm...CYA.

 

Some good posts on here.

1) Mechanical issues are the driver's fault, not the companies. If you're driving a company truck, there's no excuse to put off maintenance besides laziness. I'm driving a company truck with CRE, and if a part on the truck is bad I will refuse to drive until it gets fixed. When I picked up this truck, it sat in the body shop for 2 days. Than it sat in the service shop for 2 more days. Yeah, being down for maintenance sucks, but knowing your truck is clean and in good running order makes the down time worth it. I'd be willing to bet you that I'd pass a CSA inspection if I had one right now. Can you say that?

2) Owning to your mistakes will help you. Every driver has made mistakes in their career. No human is perfect. I had 2 non preventables within a 2 month time span (a truck hit me while I was parked and I ran over a pothole which bottomed out the tractor) and all CRE did was make me take a road test when I got to a terminal. I can't count how many times I got a Werner truck stuck in a DG store, and I didn't get fired from Werner.

3) Communication is VERY important. If you're late, tell your DM. If you're early, tell your DM. If you're on time, tell your DM. Down for maintenance? Tell your DM. There have been a few occasions that I was late delivering, but because of communication I was able to either swap the load or have the appoitment time rescheduled.

 

Mechanical issues are not always the drivers fault.

There are things that will go wrong that will cause a breakdown unforeseen, like a chk engine light going off. There can always be possibility that something with even these new dpf systems can cause a breakdown.

As far as driver being liable, things like bad tires, belts,lights or anything else that you are able to identify during pretrip inspection & you the driver ignore it, yeah..then it is your fault.